Day 3 Assignments

[Lois Wickstrom]

Lois’ Pilot Structure

what I learned … the opening scene (teaser) does not need to be connected to the rest of the story.

1. Present the first draft of your pilot Acts.

Teaser:

Essence: Kamali Parker sneaks past Skunk Farm skunks (talking sweetly to them) and steals a piece of red and black meteorite. She delivers it to Villain Howland Mann.

Turning Point: Villain scrapes from meteorite into into a test tube marked OWL. He swirls the tube, injects himself. He starts to shrink and grow feathers.

Act 1:

Essence: Coach punishes Meff for lack of team spirit – orders him to pick up garbage after school, and be late to his 11th birthday party.

Turning Point: Meff is finally nearing home and he gets sprayed by a skunk. He becomes a skunk.

Act 2:

Essence: Skunk who sprayed Meff invites him to a skunk party in the cave

Turning Point/Midpoint: En route to the cave, an owl swoops down. Meff runs toward the hen house. Other skunk runs to cave.

Act 3:

Essence: Meff finds his sister Polly collecting eggs and his mom milking a goat. Polly pets Meff and talks sweetly to him.

Turning Point: Meff is both embarrassed to be petted, and he loves it.

Act 4:

Essence: Another skunk enters the hen house and gives Meff a rotten egg. Polly holds her nose. Meff gobbles it up.

Turning Point: Meff becomes human again.

Act 5:

Essence: Meff learns that some members of his family are were-skunks. The family celebrates “Today you have become a skunk.”

Lock In: Meff is afraid of becoming a skunk again. He decides to work indoors at the family store. A hunter comes in to buy skunk-spray and sprays him. He’s a skunk again. Kamali Parker comes into the store and starts petting him.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by  Lois Wickstrom.

[Lisa Molenda]

Lisa’s Pilot Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is to not be afraid to go dark to increase intrigue and tension and up the stakes.

1. Present the first draft of your pilot Acts.

Teaser:

Essence: Jane goes to a pig vigil at a slaughterhouse with other fellow vegans

Turning Point: Jane gets hit by a slaughterhouse truck and lies on the ground, motionless and bleeding

Act 1:

Essence:Jane is a kind and loving person. She feeds the animals outside and takes care of her sick mother, and is in school for her PHD in biomedical research

Turning Point: She doesn’t have a caretaker for her mom, so she gets her brother to stay with her while she goes to a pig vigil.

Act 2:

Essence: Jane goes to a slaughterhouse to advocate for animal rights. She gets hit by a slaughterhouse truck in the process and is dead.

Turning Point/Midpoint: Marc turns Jane into a vampire to save her life.

Act 3:

Essence: Jane wakes up on Marc’s couch. He tells her who is and what happened. He tries to give her a bag of blood, but she won’t take it because it’s not vegan

Turning Point: Jane has to choose whether she wants to feed on blood to survive, or die.

Act 4:

Essence: people are lined up in chairs, appearing to be donating blood, but from ports in their necks with metal connectors sticking out. Bags, being filled really fast and being mixed in huge tanks

Turning Point: Someone’s port clogs and the staff complains that the’re holding up the line. The person with the port is scared, and is dragged through a steel door. Marc is there.

Act 5:

Essence: Jane goes home to tend to her mother

Lock In: Ammo stops by Jane’s house and she ends up feeding on him.

[Griffith Lambert]

Griff’s Pilot Structure

What I learned doing this assignment. This was surprisingly easy due to the previous lessons in Module 2 and the first two lessons of Module 3.

Teaser:

Essence: Shadowy figures sneak around in the
desert at night. They are removing items from backpacks.

Turning Point: When they get lit up by Border Patrol vehicles the surprised people drop their backpacks and scatter.

Act 1:

Essence: Stephanie is jolted awake by her alarm. She
has overslept due to staying up late to meet a deadline.

Turning Point: Despite her best efforts she is unable
to get the boys to school on time.

Act 2:

Essence: After dropping her two boys at school
Stephanie faces constant interruptions while trying to finish her work,
including the neighbor’s daughter Marcey coming home after yet another party
excursion into the desert.

Turning Point/Midpoint: Stephanie confronts Marcey.
There is subtext tension between the two women.

Act 3:

Essence: The boys get into trouble at school and
Stephanie has to go pick them up.

Turning Point: Stephanie is warned that she needs to
provide a more stable home life. The school counselors set up a home
visitation.

Act 4:

Essence: Stephanie tries to talk to the boys, but they
confront her about their absent father and her unavailability.
Turning Point: The confrontation escalates to a major
blowout argument.

Act 5:

Essence: The argument between Stephanie and her boys spills
out the door and into the cul-de-sac, where it escalates to involve the
neighbors. Police are called and everyone is ordered to go home.

Lock In: Next morning, the boys wake to find Stephanie
missing. They soon discover that Marcey is also missing.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Griffith Lambert. Reason: Remove typos caused by copy/paste

[Brenda Clarke]

First Draft Of Pilot Acts

By breaking up an episode in this way it makes it very clear of what must be covered and highlights the drama and turning points to get an audience hooked. This is early stages but I feel I now have a handle on how to go about outlining the Pilot, it can only get better from here!

Teaser: Harriet rides her horse into town desperately looking for someone. She Questions locals eg: grocery shop, publican, all shake head no

Essence: Show how upset and frustrated Harriet is

Turning Point: She is eventually pointed in the direction of the Mail Coach

Act 1:

Essence: Mrs Wright wakes one morning and rings the bell for the maid, she doesn’t answer. Harriet already up and tending to her horses as the mother calls out for “Rosie”. Mrs Wright divulges the absence of their maid to her daughter who suddenly goes to the maid’s bedroom and discovers her bed hasn’t been slept in. She has not returned from her day off.

Turning Point: In a panic, Harriet quickly mounts her horse and sets off into town to look for Rosie. Mother distraught “Who’s going to dress me”? Harriet calls back, “you could try it for once”.

Act 2:

Essence: Elliot and Richard making love in upstairs bedroom of a “Molly House”, early hours of the morning the house is raided. Richard helps Elliot escape but is arrested himself.

Turning Point/Midpoint: Harriet enquires about Rosie if she was in the bakery yesterday. Attendant responds with a yes, “two sticky buns”. Was she with her sister? Don’t know who she was but yes with another older girl. Where did they go? I saw them head off across the road to the coach house. Harriet thanks her and head to the coach house.

Act 3:

Essence: Elliot arrives home with a cracked rib and cut to his left shoulder (injuries from falling from the veranda to the ground) His servants attend to his wound and wakes the stable boy to fetch for the doctor.

Turning Point: Elliot’s father wakes to find his son has locked himself in his bedroom and won’t come out. Furious he doesn’t understand why. Elliot frightened, hurt and ashamed pours himself a large whisky. “leave me alone”!

Act 4:

• Essence: Coach House attendant informs Harriet that the two girls took the morning coach into Bristol, they didn’t purchase a return ticket.

• Turning Point: Harriet disappointed returns home and informs her mother she is off to Bristol to find Rosie. Mrs. Wright says that its’ “her no good older sister that has probably got her into some sort of trouble”. This now upsets Harriet even more. She quickly packs a bag, saddles a fresh horse and heads off for Bristol. Mrs. Wright can’t understand her daughters sudden urge to find their maid, her neglect of her animals/business

Act 5:

Essence: to see Rosie and Tilly being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon. To reveal the real relationship of Harriet and Rosie.

Lock In: Harriet at Coach House in Bristol enquires about the two girls and where they’re headed? Someone saw them go to the local pub for a drink. Harriet goes to pub where a local tells her that Tilly is a “bad’un” and cavorts with “all sorts”. Criminal Connections? Harriet exhausted, rests up in a room at the pub. She falls asleep on the bed and dreams: FLASHBACK: the afternoon Rosie comes into the stables and seduces Harriet.